11) THE AFGHAN WAR: MURDEROUS, EXPENSIVE AND UNWINNABLE

(The following article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Kimball Cariou

All the latest developments and news back up the desire of the majority of Canadians to get out of the war in Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Increasingly, the war is being exposed as incredibly bloody, hugely expensive, and utterly unwinnable.

     A new study by University of New Hampshire professor Marc W. Herold finds that at least 3,200 civilians have been killed by NATO and US action in Afghanistan since 2005.

     Herold says NATO's use of air power is growing in Afghanistan, raising risks for civilians. Released on the anniversary of the October 7, 2001 launch of the invasion of Afghanistan, the report also states that the total numbers of civilian deaths is underestimated by groups such as Human Rights Watch, and that the international military and media attach low value to Afghan life in the accounting of events.

    The Afghan Victim Memorial Project run by Herold found between 2,699 and 3,273 civilians were killed in direct action by international forces in Afghanistan from 2005 to October 2008. By his own estimate, the Project's figures are also underestimates, because NATO often mislabels civilians as "militants" and because many injured civilians later die without being added to the total by the media and NGO reports.
    
     "By relying upon aerial close air support attacks, US/NATO forces spare their pilots and ground troops but kill lots of innocent Afghan civilians," says Herold. "Air strikes are 4-10 times as deadly for Afghan civilians as are ground attacks."

     In some cases, the families have received compensation, but these payouts have been far lower than in other wars. The US military gives families of its victims at most $2,500 as a condolence payment, not "compensation" which would admit wrong-doing. Canadian condolence payments to Afghans since 2006 range from $1,100-9,000, Herold says.

     This compares to $1.85 million paid for victims of the 1988 bombing of a flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, and $150,000 per victim of the 1999 US bombing on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that killed three Chinese and wounded 23 other people.

 Herold's findings are certainly backed up by other sources. The Afghan war blog maintained by Vancouver's StopWar.ca (http://www.stopwarblogspot.blogspot.com), for example, counted between 139 and 184 civilians killed by NATO attacks in August 2008, on top of 147 to 161 in July, based on all available reports. The death toll during these two months was more than double the monthly average of 71 during the period covered by Herold's study.

     The scandalous increase in civilian deaths comes as the Canadian public becomes more aware of the total cost of the Afghan occupation mission.

     One new report says the total price tag will hit as much as $18 billion by the time troops are now scheduled to be withdrawn in 2011, or about $1,500 for every household in Canada. Released on Oct. 9, the report by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reported says the real extra cost of the Canadian military mission is billions of dollars more than Ottawa has estimated.

     Page found that the Department of National Defence has not reported to Parliament the same costs it records on its internal books, and that government accounting methods make it hard to place a separate price tag on the Afghan mission.

     "Although Canada is in the seventh year of the Afghanistan mission, Parliament and Canadians have not been provided with accurate and comprehensive departmental cost estimates," Page said.

     The Department of National Defence reports to parliament are two years behind its internal books, and more than $2-billion higher, Page reports. His office, unlike the government, includes the cost of replacing military equipment deployed in Afghanistan. These "incremental" costs - the extra cost of being in Afghanistan over and above what would be spent otherwise - have run between $5.9 billion and $7.4 billion between 2001 and 2008. As the Globe and Mail newspaper reported, "Once all costs, including veterans' benefits and foreign aid are included, the total is $7.7 billion to $10.5 billion. If Canadian troop levels remain the same, the military mission will cost another $5.7-billion by 2011" and the total costs will rise to somewhere between $13.9 billion and $18.1 billion, the report concludes.

     These estimates are below the $22 billion figure said to be contained in an upcoming study by David Perry, a former deputy director of Dalhousie University's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. Some of Perry's findings were discussed at a Sept. 16 conference attended by military leaders and analysts from Canada, the U.S. and several Asia-Pacific nations.

     Perry's estimates include $7 billion for the incremental cost of the war from late 2001 to 2012, everything from ammunition and fuel to the salaries of reservists and contractors; $11 billion for long-term health care of Afghan war veterans and related benefits; $2 billion for mission-specific equipment, such as Leopard tanks, howitzers, counter-mine vehicles to aerial drones and six Chinook helicopters; and $2 billion to replace the military's LAV-3 fleet, which will soon be worn out "from the wear and tear of Afghanistan."

     On top of all this news, there have been several statements and articles from highly-placed Western experts warning that the war cannot be won, and that negotiations with the Taliban are the only way to move towards stability in the country.

     Views along these lines from Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, currently the British ambassador to Afghanistan, were published recently in the French weekly Le Canard Enchainé, based on a diplomatic cable written by Francois Fitou, the French Deputy Ambassador in Kabul.

     Fitou reported to French President Sarkozy's office and his own Foreign Ministry that Cowper-Coles believed that "American strategy is destined to fail" in Afghanistan.

     According to Fitou, the British diplomat said, "The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the Government has lost all trust. Our public statements should not delude us over the fact that the insurrection, while incapable of winning a military victory, nevertheless has the capacity to make life increasingly difficult, including in the capital. The presence - especially the military presence - of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution. The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them. In doing so, they are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis (which, moreover, will probably be dramatic)."

     Reinforcing the NATO military presence insurrection would be counter-productive, he said, since this "would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and it would multiply the number of targets (for the insurgents)."

     A similar analysis appeared in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper on October 5, quoting Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan. He told The Times that in his opinion, a military victory over the Taliban was "neither feasible nor supportable."

     The Times also reported that the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kay Eide, told a recent news conference in Kabul that "I've always said to those that talk about the military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more political energy... We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. That means political engagement."